THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 21, 2017
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1
OPENING
Lemon A comedy, directed by Janicza Bravo, about
a frustrated actor (Brett Gelman) whose girlfriend
(Judy Greer) leaves him. Co-starring Nia Long
and Michael Cera. Opening Aug. 18. (In limited re-
lease.) • Logan Lucky Steven Soderbergh directed
this comedic thriller, about a hapless construction
worker (Channing Tatum) who organizes a rob-
bery o a Nascar speedway. Co-starring Daniel
Craig, Adam Driver, and Riley Keough. Opening
Aug. 18. (In wide release.) • Patti Cake$ Reviewed in
Now Playing. Opening Aug. 18. (In limited release.)
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NOW PLAYING
Atomic Blonde
This standard-issue spy-by-the-pound yarn---set
during the last days o the Berlin Wall---is both
enlivened and deadened by its unusually realistic
and numbingly plentiful violence. Charlize Theron
stars as Lorraine Broughton, an M.I.6 agent sent
to the still divided city to locate---with the help o
a British colleague (James McAvoy)---a wristwatch
containing a list o Western spies, and to rescue
a Stasi turncoat (Eddie Marsan), who has the list
memorized. This action is seen in ashbacks, in-
tercut with scenes o the bloodied, bruised, and
embittered Lorraine's chilly debrie ng by her han-
dlers (Toby Jones and John Goodman). The de-
ceptive twists and cynical moods o espionage take
place in nostalgically bleak Cold War cityscapes,
but the ne points o spycraft are either reduced
to mere winks or ampli ed to bone-thwacking and
gore-spraying martial artistry. Theron keeps her
cool throughout the pummelling gyrations, but the
lm strains to achieve a breathless panache and
a lurid swagger for which David Leitch's direc-
tion is too heavy-footed and literal; a deft, metal-
bashing automotive ballet comes too late to help.
With So a Boutella, as a French agent with an
artistic streak.---Richard Brody (In wide release.)
Bamboozled
Spike Lee's sharp, riotous satire, from 2000, zeroes
in on the grotesque misrepresentation o blacks in
American media---and on their underrepresenta-
tion in the corporate o ces that control it. Pierre
Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is the sole black pro-
gramming executive at a TV network. Wanting to
prove his bosses' obliviousness, he proposes a mon-
strous absurdity---a "Saturday Night Live"-style
minstrel show, featuring black actors, in black-
face, reprising vile stereotypes. To Pierre's horror,
the show is picked up and becomes a hit, restoring
those stereotypes to popular culture. With a wide
range o incisive, sardonic, hyperbolic humor and
drama, Lee sketches the circular connections be-
tween racist images, racist policies, and the lack o
leadership to resist them. The exuberant perfor-
mances o the show's stars---a comedian (Tommy
Davidson) and a tap dancer (Savion Glover), whom
Pierre has plucked o the streets---bring out Lee's
potent theatrical paradox. The pleasure o mock-
ing stereotypes risks perpetuating them, which is
why comedy---as embodied by the old-school co-
medians Junebug (Paul Mooney) and Honeycutt
(Thomas Je erson Byrd)---is, in Lee's view, a high
and serious calling. With Jada Pinkett Smith, as
Pierre's con icted colleague.---R.B. (Anthology Film
Archives, Aug. 18 and Aug. 20.)
Columbus
The title o the visual artist and video-essayist
Kogonada's intellectually passionate rst feature
refers to the Indiana city that's home to a sur-
prising abundance o modern architectural mas-
terworks. Those buildings re the imagination
o his protagonist, a twentyish woman named
Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), who's stuck in place.
Spurning college to care for her mother (Michelle
Forbes), who's a recovering drug addict, Casey
works in the local library. When Jin (John Cho),
an architectural historian's son, comes to town, he
abets her outpouring o pent-up ideas and enthu-
siasms about architecture and tries to help change
her life. Richardson infuses her hyperalert perfor-
mance with a rare dialectical ardor; her avid gaze
at the city's landmarks is matched by Kogonada's
own images, which capture the virtual libido o
aesthetic sensibility. Filming Casey and Jin on
location in the presence o the buildings that in-
spire them, he revels in the power o contempla-
tive companionship---o looking, talking, thinking
together---and unfolds the wonder o an artis-
tic coming o age. With Rory Culkin, as Casey's
ironic grad-student colleague, and Parker Posey,
as Jin's longtime friend.---R.B. (In limited release.)
Detroit
The latest Kathryn Bigelow movie is set in July,
1967. Nothing about the season should be mistaken
for a summer o love. The action begins in dark-
ness, with a police raid on a Detroit bar, and pro-
ceeds to waves o rioting and looting. Only tfully
do we seem to see the light. The centerpiece o
the story, which was written by Mark Boal and is
grounded in historical events, unfolds at a motel,
where shots are heard; the cops, with a racist bully
(Will Poulter) in their midst, line up a bunch o
suspects, including a marine (Anthony Mackie)
who's just back from Vietnam, and interrogate
them. By the end o the night, three o the sus-
pects are dead. The new lm, compared with Big-
elow's "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012), is gruelling to
watch, drawn out rather than tightly wound, and
no uncertainty hangs over the crime at its heart;
we know who the bad guys are. I there is depth
and doubt here, it resides in John Boyega, who
plays a security guard caught up in the deeds at
the motel. The tragedy o the times is right there,
in his horri ed eyes.---Anthony Lane (Reviewed in
our issue of 8/7 & 14/17.) (In wide release.)
Dunkirk
The new Christopher Nolan movie is set in 1940,
during the mass evacuation o British and French
troops from northern France to the relative safety
o England. The saga, an essential chapter in the
British wartime narrative, is not widely known else-
where, and what Nolan delivers is neither a history
lesson nor even much o a war lm. A good deal o
it strikes the senses, not to mention the nerves, as
an exercise in high tension and near-abstraction,
as men (there are almost no women to be seen) are
perilously poised between land and water, water
and air, darkness and light. Mark Rylance, dourly
determined, plays the skipper o the Moonstone,
one o the innumerable "Little Ships" that went to
the aid o those who were trapped on the beaches.
Overhead, Tom Hardy is in typically phlegmatic
form as a Spit re pilot who must protect the naval
vessels from German bombers. The movie feels
old-fashioned whenever it seeks to stir up British
pride; as a fable o survival, though, with its quick-
silver editing and an anxious score by Hans Zim-
mer, it amazes and exhausts in equal measure. With
Kenneth Branagh, Fionn Whitehead, and Harry
Styles.---A.L. (7/31/17) (In wide release.)
Full Moon in Paris
Eric Rohmer's 1984 romantic comedy is one o his
most robust achievements, thanks to a cast that in-
cludes two o France's nest modern performers.
Pascale Ogier---tall, angular, darting, lled with
nervous energy and ardent longing---plays Lou-
ise, an interior designer who lives with her athletic
boyfriend, Rémy (Tchéky Karyo), in a new sub-
urban apartment complex. Needing more time to
herself, she refurbishes the Parisian pied-à-terre
that she had planned to sell, and, in the city, spends
time with Octave, a writer played by the theatrical
Fabrice Luchini, whose hyper-re ned diction and
magisterial gestures capture to perfection the aes-
theticizing intellect. But Octave caddishly presses
the physical side o things and puts the friendship
at risk, even as Louise innocently stirs up trou-
ble with Rémy. With a graceful round o self-
deceptions and mistaken identities, exquisite ra-
tionalizations and fortuitous accidents, Rohmer
pierces the glossy veneer o the social scene and
the digni ed realm o art to reveal the sexual fury
that they embody. In French.---R.B. (Film Society
of Lincoln Center, Aug. 18, and streaming.)
Girls Trip
This warmhearted, occasionally uproarious comedy
doesn't quite sustain the heights o its performers'
inspirations. Ryan (Regina Hall), a best-selling au-
thor, is chosen to deliver the keynote address at the
Essence Festival, in New Orleans, and she invites
her three longtime best friends to join her for a sen-
timental and hard-partying reunion. Sasha (Queen
Latifah), a journalist who's now on the celebrity
beat, has money trouble; Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith),
a nurse and divorced mother o two young children,
is lonely; and Dina (Ti any Haddish), an outra-
geously brazen pleasure-seeker, seems oblivious o
the consequences o her actions. Meanwhile, Ryan
learns that Stewart (Mike Colter), her husband and
business partner, is having an a air with a younger
woman (Deborah Ayorinde). These women's prob-
lems have substance even though their characters
are thinly written, and the lm's comedic our-
ishes o er a refreshing frankness about sex from
women's perspectives. The view o middle-class
African-American women's lives behind closed
doors, despite its antic exaggeration, has a lived-in
speci city. Malcolm D. Lee's direction doesn't o er
much style or vigor, but Haddish delivers a wild
yet precise performance o verbal and gestural
fury that puts her at the forefront o contemporary
comedy.---R.B. (In wide release.)
Ingrid Goes West
Aubrey Plaza's ercely committed performance
nearly rescues this dubious contrivance from ab-
surdity. The drama, directed by Matt Spicer, is
the latest entry in the picturesque-mental-illness
genre. Plaza plays the title character, a young
woman whose violent outbursts lead to a spell
in an institution. When Ingrid gets out, instead
o receiving therapy and taking medication, she
moves to Los Angeles in order to stalk an Insta-
gram celebrity named Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen)
and insinuate hersel into Taylor's private life
and social-media feeds. Ingrid manipulates Dan
(O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), her new neighbor and quasi-
landlord, for help with her schemes; indi erent
to the pain she causes, Ingrid is speeding toward
disaster and determined not to crash alone. Yet
Spicer's empathetic view o Ingrid's tangle o mis-
ery is outweighed by his satirical critique o on-
line stardom, Hollywood hustling, and conspic-
uous consumption; he presents Ingrid's maladies
as the results o the social ills o the times. The ac-
tion devolves into wan op-ed commentary. With
Billy Magnussen, as Taylor's dissolute yet deeply
loyal brother, and Wyatt Russell, as her trophy
boyfriend.---R.B. (In limited release.)
MOVIES